Creating and Copying Snapshots

You can manually create a snapshot of an existing boot environment for your
reference. This snapshot is a read-only image of a dataset or boot
environment at a given point in time. You can create a custom name
for the snapshot that indicates when the snapshot was created or what it
contains. You can then copy that snapshot.

Creating a Snapshot of a Boot Environment

The following command creates a snapshot of the existing boot environment named BeName.

Syntax: beadm create BeName@snapshotdescription

The snapshot name must use the format, BeName@snapshotdescription, where BeName is the
name of an existing boot environment that you want to make a snapshot
from. Provide a custom snapshot description to identify the date or purpose of
the snapshot.

Some snapshot names are:

BE1@0312200.12:15pm

BE2@backup

BE1@march132008

Unless you use the beadm create command to assign a custom title to a
snapshot, titles for snapshots automatically include a timestamp that indicates when the snapshot
was taken.

Creating a Boot Environment From an Existing Snapshot

A snapshot of a boot environment is not bootable. However, you can
create a new boot environment from an existing snapshot. Then you can activate
and boot that new boot environment.

How to Create a Boot Environment From a Snapshot

Become the root role.

Create a new boot environment from a snapshot.

# beadm create -eBEname@snapshotdescriptionBeName

Replace the variable, BEname@snapshotdescription, with the name of an existing snapshot. Replace the
variable, BEname, with a custom name for your new boot environment.

For example:

# beadm create -e BE1@now BE2

This command creates a new boot environment, named BE2, from the existing snapshot
named BE1@now.